Sarah Addison Allen Quotes

I lost myself trying to find happiness in things that didn't love me back.

Identity has been such an explosive territory for me... so hard, so painful at times.

It feels weird to say there's more to me than that, like I'm being overdramatic, and a tear rolls down my cheek. But, no - I do like I feel like there's more to me than just baseball.

I am a very honest person, and I can only say there are moments in my life where I really did think I was being me in the sense of my morals and beliefs and the way I acted. But when I look back at certain things that I wore and my hair and make-up, I was like, 'Whoa! That wasn't me!' But I didn't know it back then.

I sometimes truly despair at ever being meaningfully altered and affected by the things I claim are so important to me.

One day I actually took the list into the bathroom and I put it up against my face and looked in the mirror and I realized I had one of two choices, change the list or change myself.

Being down makes you think who you are.

I just felt that I was going to fall apart if I didn't learn to be myself.

Every one of us at some point in our lives has had the struggle with identity.

There has to be a balance, Vin," Elend said. "Somehow, we'll find it. The balance between whom we wish to be and whom we need to be." He sighed. "But for now," he said, nodding to the side, "we simply have to be satisfied with who we are.

Today, a young person that doesn't know themselves will totally be sold some other situation. Let's do your avatar. You know? And young people are going out, spending what little they have to try to buy themselves when they don't have themselves, or they feel like they don't have themselves. To me, that's like a damn pimp tragedy.

As I stepped out to face myself in the mirror, reaching a hand to smooth away the steam, I saw myself differently. It was as if I had grown again as I slept, but this time just to fit my own size. As if my soul had expanded, filling out the gaps of the height that had burdened me all these months. Like a balloon filling slowly with air, becoming all smooth and buoyant, I felt like I finally fit within myself, edge to edge, every crevice filled.

Don't try to change people. It won't work, and they will end up resenting you. Only God can change people!

Why am I trying to become what I don’t want to be … when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I say I know who I am.

There are times when you don't know yourself. There are times when you don't want to know yourself. There are times when you want to be what you have never allowed yourself to be before.

At midlife, you're pregnant with the best self you can be - someone who has learned enough from both successes and failures to add up to a fine human being.

All my life I've tried to make everybody happy while I just hurt and hide, waiting for someone to tell me it's my turn to decide.

Be who you are. Otherwise, you end up committing suicide. You end up marrying people when you shouldn't be marrying them and having terrible, secret lives.

I used to blame my problems on other people. But my moment of clarity, if you want to call it that, came when I was looking in the mirror one day and just burst into tears. It wasn't just that I looked bad, it was that I knew my problem was me.

My life has changed. I'm not walking around any more wishing I wasn't me, which was the case at one time.

I don't want to be anything other than what I've been trying to be lately.

It's an interesting thing when you discover something about yourself. To go: 'Wow, I'm not the person I thought I was. I'm in the middle of something and I can't actually deal with it.'

The more forcibly I'm made aware of the fact that I'll never be the kind of storyteller I most admire, the less I'll be troubled by that. I'll probably just become more myself.

Over a long period of time, living as if you were someone else is no fun.

I have struggled with identity all my life. It's not like something that just happened last week.